Italdesign Quaranta Hybrid Exclusive First Drive

Green Machine Exotic: Who says hybrids have to be boring?

The electroluminescent speedometer brushes 200 kph as we hurtle down the back straight of a secluded, banked-oval test track near Turin, Italy. From the seat to my left, snapper Bramley captures the moment with his Canons. To my right is Fabrizio Giugiaro, director of styling of Italdesign and the primary creative force behind the outrageous machine we're riding in. I'm the man in the middle. That's correct, because a central driving position is one of many fascinating design aspects of the Italdesign Quaranta."200K! Not bad for a concept car, no?" Giugiaro is engaging, passionate, fashion-model handsome, and funnier than Letterman. The engine blares and blats under full throttle, yet as we glide this futuristic, fighter-jet canopied doorstop to a halt, the expected guttural thrum from an idling four-cam V-10 is noticeable by its absence. The only noise I hear is the distant whir of a cooling fan mixed with miscellaneous electronic fizzes. "It's wrong. All wrong," Fabrizio says. "The car is running, but there is no sound. Crazy!"That's because this turntable star of the 2008 Geneva motor show shares its basic philosophy not with the Lamborghini Gallardo that Giugiaro also designed, but with that poster-child of all hybrids, Toyota's white-hot-selling Prius. Welcome to the hybrid-powered, all-wheel-drive, mid-engine exotic sports car.The Quaranta is overwhelming in concept, execution, and design detail. And unlike so many show ponies (that look racy underneath an auto show's bright lights, but in reality are motivated by a golf-cart motor and a few 12-volt batteries), this Italdesign creation is a fully engineered runner. And we're here flogging it for all it's worth-many millions, no doubt-less than 60 days after its worldwide debut in Geneva.

Massage the right button, and the rear decklid opens to reveal a powertrain cribbed from what we know as the Lexus RX 400h. Italdesign and Toyota have an ongoing relationship; their first project, the Toyota Volta concept of 2004, laid the groundwork for this far more outrageous interpretation of the green exotic. Although the Toyota sport/utility provides its 3.3-liter DOHC V-6 engine, electric-motor assist hardware, continuously variable transmission, all-wheel-drive system, and a bucketload of electronics (including the IP-mounted display that shows when the power is flowing to and from the motors and battery pack), the rest of the Quaranta was designed, engineered, and built by hand from the ground up at Italdesign's Moncalieri, Italy, facilities.With its modified, side-exit exhaust and reprogrammed engine-management systems, this 3100-pound ecomissile is rated at 268 total horsepower. Battery charging is assisted by Toyota's regenerative braking system and also by solar panels affixed to the car's front and rear horizontal surfaces. As functional and styling elements, the panels generate an additional 250 watts of free power, so long as the sun is shining.

2004's volta concept was badged as a Toyota. It isn't as extreme, yet a few of its design cues are reinterpreted into the Quaranta.

Hopefully some of the ideas behind this drive train will make it's way into a production model, such as the upcoming Lexus badged Prius. (How long have we been waiting for the LF-A now?)The design is nice (though everyone's right, the wheel arches gotta go), sleek, functional, futuristic in a 'back to the future' kind a way. I'm a big fan of center seating, but I think we are a LONG way away from that being accepted on a large enough scale for it to be commercially viable.

I think you guys are missing the point. 3 mil is an estimated price it took to build this one. A one off hand built custom CONCEPT car.Besides, lets call this car exactly what it is: a Prius on steroids that just did an 8-ball. If they honestly said they wanted to charge 3 mil for it they would have immediately been tackled and forced to undergo shock therapy.

I'm glad to see Italdesign can make disgusting looking cars so consistently. Seriously, this is yet another hatch back wedge shape from this design firm. Just because it doesn't look production ready doesn't mean it looks good.